resolute colleague of the equally resolute Prime Minister. He sent all documents hearing on the question, except the private letter which Grose refused to restore, and he sent them through Grose, hoping that the latter would not think his letters disrespectful, *' I have no other motive for requesting you will bear this trouble, than that of stating my reasons for the line of conduct which I have pursued, and which has, unfortunately for me, met with your displeasure/' He must have been confident in his own mind, for he assured the Secretary of State that if, in repressing mutiny, he Iiad committed errors, they yet proceeded from an honest desire to forward the king's service, to protect the persona and property of every person under his charge, and to make the soldier respected," The Court of Inquiry in Sydney seemed to insinuate that the marine settler ought to have been dogged. King remarked that in the only books he possessed he could find no authority for sentencing a freeman to corporal punish- ment. Whether freed-men were entitled to benelit by the same '* humane law he knew not, but he was thoroughly convinced of the ** policy and utility" of extending it, anrf had always extended it to them. On reading King's justification Grose perceived that insolent assumptions on the part of the military, whom he had done so much to corrupt, would scarcely find favour in England. Accordingly he wrote to the Secretary of State that all that had happened had been '*very fairly and exactly stated by King, He addetl —
- As my letter to Iiiiii was written at a time when the situation of the
colony did not wear the moat pleasiiig aspectj it may in some degreoJ account for my having exprtisaed myself in auch sevetti terms to an ofticerl of whom I have always had the highest opinion and for whom I Bhonhl he exceedingly sorry if any nnfavourable conehtaions were drawn from anything 1 felt it my duty at that time to say." ■ Of this letter he sent a copy to King. 1 On the 10th June 1795^ the Duke of Portland, who for a short time presided over the department, pronounced his
- Ijong hefore this date, however, King^a repeated applicationa for
a let^ally-Lonatitiited Criminal Court at Norfolk Island had been complied with hy Dundas. An Act (XLV. ijao. IH.) was passeti 1*th May 1794, and W£LS commended hy Dundas to the attention of Hunter in a despatch of lat JuJf 1794,
